There is no shortage of costumes to purchase in our local department or online. However, using your imagination to create your DIY Halloween costume not only engages you and your little one's imagination but can also help you be a little more green this Halloween.

Cities are more important than ever in efforts to address climate change. By 2050 global city populations are expected to almost double in size, but urban areas already account for nearly 75 per cent of total carbon emissions. Cities all around the planet have the opportunity to transition "from grey to green."

The students did their own research, they invited resource experts to give presentations and then a delegation of 10 students locked themselves in a room for a weekend with some graduate students from the University of Alberta to boil inputs from 3,000 students down into a sophisticated set of recommendations for change.

On the roof of the Two Twenty building in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan are 90 solar modules comprising a 27.5 kilowatt solar system, the very first project built by the newly-formed SES Solar Co-operative. The co-op is an offshoot of the Saskatchewan Environmental Society (SES) that works on conservation, sustainability and yes, energy issues.

In 2015, the city of Summerside, Prince Edward Island, achieved the highest level of wind power integration in North America. While the province of P.E.I. is already a leader with 26 per cent of its electricity coming from wind power, the City of Summerside Electric Utility has ratcheted that up to an astonishing 46 per cent by adding a smart grid with energy storage.

Monday was the first day of the Republican Convention where Donald Trump will be confirmed as the party's nominee for November's presidential election. On Thursday, when he delivers his keynote speech, he will likely repeat his tirade against free trade agreements, which has become his trademark.

Chelmick's getaway required the hard work of clearing brush and laying a foundation. The original cabin was 600 square feet and solar-powered, complete with battery storage. Why solar? Chelmick recalls seeing brown streaks across the sky near Lake Wabamun.

Lliam Hildebrand is first and foremost a boilermaker. On his last oilsands project in northern Alberta, a colleague said to him over lunch, "Man, oil prices are still dropping. They're going to go below $30 soon, and if we don't start diversifying our jobs into renewables, our union is screwed."

When PEI's government crafted a plan to wean their grid off costly and carbon-intensive diesel, they turned to wind power, one renewable resource that the island has plenty of. A map of the wind potential of PEI glows red showing high potential for much of the island. As we write this 34 per cent of PEI's electricity is coming from the wind.

There are some who say PEI is tapped out on it's renewable energy, but after speaking to the energy minister, the CEO of the PEI Energy Corporation, Summerside's utility manager and Scott Harper of the institute it seems pretty clear PEI is determined to do more.

Alberta's carbon tax is expected to have a relatively minor impact on middle to lower income folks, but what about a major city that buys $60 million worth of power every year? That's going to cut into some budgets! It turns out there's one municipality that's positioned very well for a carbon tax but its name might surprise you.

When it comes to climate change, Bailey doesn't think we're doomed. He does think that the balance of the scientific evidence indicates that man-made global warming likely poses a significant problem for humanity, but he believes that human ingenuity can most likely solve that problem well before the end of the century.

Raising the minimum wage, diversifying Alberta's economy and supporting working people have my full support, but I'm sorry Premier Notley, I just can't get behind you on pipelines. New pipelines aren't good for the environment, they aren't good for the climate, and I'm sorry, but they aren't good for working people or good governance, either.

A man's skin is very different from a woman's, in most cases it's oiler, the pores are larger and it's more sensitive due to the daily shaving routine, I've rounded up my top tips (with product recommendations) for the perfect shave.

On the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), International Trade minister Chrystia Freeland has claimed to be in "listening mode." And she says no decision has been made yet. It is widely reported that she is touring the country to hear Canadians on the TPP. But it is not clear whom she is actually consulting.

In the interest of bettering ourselves and bettering this beautiful planet that we all call home, we’ve come up with relatable explanations for some of the more popular terms you might be hearing as of late.

Even though it's become vastly more efficient and effective to digitize work processes over the past few years, they're still stuck in the past, printing off reams of documents. It's unnecessary paper use that wastes resources, undermines productivity, bogs down workflow and prevents companies from realizing competitive advantages derived from becoming digital enterprises.

When you think of St. Patrick, the man who brought Christianity to Ireland, what do you see? A man with a white beard in green clerical robes, wearing a mitre, carrying a crook? This is the commonly recognized version of the saint but it turns out that much of his costume has been appropriated from different time periods and is not necessarily true to the period in which St. Patrick lived.

With our favourite Irish holiday just around the corner, it's only fitting to show how you can make your home green, too. And we don't just mean decorating the space in shamrocks, but instead by incorporating these eco-friendly devices.

A carbon neutral home and net-zero home are similar in that both produce as much energy as they consume over the course of a year. The difference is a net-zero home produces its own energy right on the home, whereas a carbon neutral home can produce its energy elsewhere in the community.

An earthship is an off-grid home that produces its own energy, captures its own water, treats its own wastewater, grows its own food and passively collects the sun's energy for heat. That's the idea, anyways. But ever since the Kinney Earthship was built in the summer of 2014, Duncan Kinney has received many emails about one particular subject: how does it hold up so far north?

The era of net-zero homes is upon us. These super-efficient homes use rooftop solar energy production and smaller, electric powered heating systems such as air source heat pumps to produce as much energy as they consume. That's some sexy technology, but it only gets us halfway to net-zero. The real secret is insulation.

Renewable energy is transitioning from a few keen farmers and municipalities to provincial and perhaps even national scale initiatives. This is good news for climate change and emissions reductions, but it also represents investment in new jobs and industries with plenty of future potential.